Dealing With An Extremely Stubborn Child?

Our children on play dates get great reviews from parents of their dates, no matter how bad they behave at home. Exchanges with other parents can bring home a pleasant child once in a while. And that behavior might stick, when tantrums begin to sound sillier and sillier to themselves as they grow up.

 

Even though I have no inputs for this post I can share my observation with you. It may not be true in all cases, but I have observed this in my family.

We all cousins have siblings except one cousin who is a single child for her parents. Somehow she turned out to be more adamant than any of us. Same in my sister/sisters' in law family too. The single child is more stubborn than the one with siblings.

Maybe having a sibling will change your kid from being stubborn. Or it may have nothing at all to do with a sibling. I'm not sure of it.
I'm not sure if she has any sibling and no I'm not telling if she doesn't have one you plan -that is something you and hubby will decide. But Just sharing my observation.

And no other inputs from my end!

 

That's a valid point and generally (exceptions aside) it happens to be true.

 

There are great ideas already..another point I would like to add is talking to her about respect. Instilling in her the absolute non negotiable need to respect everyone as a person first.

I noticed such things cropping up in my child at around 6 too. Perhaps they realise that their words can wound us and that power gets to their h3ad. I would usually ignore for the first time but then stop her on her tracks asking if she would like it if anyone spoke to her that way. Insist that if she has to be respected, she needs to respect others too. Also consequence of taking away stuff helped.

When chilling out I've made lists of what she wants from life - the kind of person she wants to grow up to be. Then we check whether she is on track to being a smart kind person. I asked her to make a list of things she might not want to do but must do straight away after getting up - get out of bed, brush, shower, get dressed etc. Then ticked them off everyday giving stars with a reward for n number of stars.

We talked a.lot about every day people being inspiring- a child who performed without any prior warning though she wa just beginning to learn the instrument; someone stopping to help a in the park; even about someone giving us way while driving.

Talking about what was nice about something that crossed our path helped and we also talked about what we would do differently than someone else after an unpleasant experience. It helped shape my child greatly I feel.

I watch and read a lot of brain development, child rearing, kids development type material. I show her select bits from those. Especially from reality shows. It has an profound effect on her

Sadly adding another child to the mix didn't help fixing the attitude probs. It moved the goal post further away due to sijlig rivalry.

 

Arrogance can sometimes come out as stupidity too.
No one incl me suggested to have another, stated (rather agreed with previous poster) it more as a recognition of a fact. Number of kids is personal decision by a couple, and I am not stupid to not realize that.